Where Brazil’s World Cup Fans Come From, Based on Facebook Check-Ins

Skift Take

The 3.7 million tourists headed to Brazil for the World Cup is far less than those that visit during Carnival season, making most fears about Brazil’s lack of preparation overblown.

— Samantha Shankman

Despite its relatively new obsession with soccer, or futbol, the United States is sending more tourists to the World Cup in Brazil than any other country, according to data collected by Facebook.

Facebook collected data on check-ins around the 12 Brazilian World Cup host cities by people who live outside of Brazil and found that Americans were the fans traveling to the games in the largest numbers. Or at least those posting and boasting about it on their Facebook profile.

In addition to the U.S., the top five source countries for World Cup tourists are all located in Latin America including Mexico, Colombia, Chile, and Argentina.

Europe is also sending a larger proportion of tourists to the games. The UK, Italy, Germany, and France take up four more spots on the top ten list, which rounds out with Australia.

Of the Americans traveling to the games, the majority were headed there from major U.S. cities including New York, Los Angeles, and Miami.

What’s interesting; however, is that New York ranks far below other international cities in terms of tourists headed from there to Brazil. Cities in Latin America including Bogota, Mexico City and Santiago have sent far more tourists to the World Cup than New York.

The other top six source cities for World Cup tourists are London, New York, Paris, Monterrey, Medellin, and Sydney.

Facebook turned its check-in data into a visualization that shows where tourists are coming from and which Brazilian city they’re headed to.

Each arc represents 20 people from their home city (in blue) and checking in to one of the World Cup cities (in red). The size of the circles in Brazil are proportional to the total number of people checking in to a World Cup host city.